School is out for most people. We are taking a little break too. Not a big one as we want to keep to our year round schedule (so we’ll be off the first month after the baby is born). Whenever we take a break, we never really take a full break. There are still some very basics we do but they only take about 5-10 minutes each every day. For the next three to four Fridays I’ll list the activities we do for the basic subjects of reading, writing, and math as well as some science or history once in a while. Today’s topic is writing:

Easy Writing Activities for Summer:

• Do some mad-libs.
• Write a group story. You write a beginning – several sentences, then pass the paper to a child who writes a few sentences, then they pass it on to the next child, etc until your story is complete. Have younger children who don’t write dictate to you what they want their sentences to say.
• Write a letter to a grandparent, cousin, or friend.
• Pick a letter from the alphabet and write sentences with alliteration.
• Find a picture in a magazine and write a story about the picture.
• Have each person write a word of their choosing at the top of their paper. Pass the paper to someone else and make a list of synonyms or antonyms (or both!) for that word.
• Similar to above only instead of writing synonyms write rhyming words.
• Choose a word from the dictionary, copy the definition, then write at least three sentences that contain that word.
• Write a “daddy and me” or “mommy and me” book.
• Write an acrostic poem using the word ‘summer.’
• Create a comic strip. Here’s a cute way to do it.
• Write a diamante poem using this interactive site.
• Write a postcard. Much easier than writing a full letter!
• Look out the window and write three similes for what you can see. Now change those similes into metaphors.
• Do a word search.
• Write a Paint Chip Story.
• Play Scrabble or Bananagrams or Boggle.
• Rewrite a favorite children’s story. For instance, instead of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf write about the Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig.
• Sit outside and write down all the sounds you hear, or sights you see, or smells you smell.

There are definitely more activities than these to do but hopefully this will be a starting point. One fun thing is to make a “weekly special.” Here are a couple of examples:

1. Choose a word from the dictionary and copy its meaning one day. The next day write all the synonyms you can. The next day write all the antonyms you can think of. The next day write all the rhyming words, and finally the last day write five sentences that contain the original word and at least one other word from the synonyms, antonym, rhyming lists created.
2. Have a poetry week.
3. Letter writing week where a letter is written every day to a different person.